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/biz/ - Business & Finance

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4771990 No.4771990 [Reply] [Original]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the minimum wage is adjusted annually for inflation alone, yes?
Since inflation only measures overall price rise of goods in general, including non-essential items, adjusting the minimum wage only for inflation on a federal scale means that it does not accurate reflect a change in cost of living. Many people might think that by adjusting for inflation, the minimum wage keeps with prices, but this is not true due to non-essential items as well as local price variations. Is this correct?
Why don't we make the "Federal Minimum Wage" not a number, but instead a metric, like "the federal minimum wage is x times change in cost of living in the area"? Then if a county or state chose to raise it above that level by vote of the constituents, they are perfectly able.
Thoughts?

>> No.4772076
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4772076

>>4771990

Didn't you get the memo?

USD is dead.

The countries who had weak standings on their fiat currency are the first to get out.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42217798

>> No.4772126

>>4772076
USD wont die as long as the military just happens to invade oil nations
>>4771990
why should the federal government tell you what you are allowed to work for?
if i think i want to work for burger co. and we agree to $5/hr, why should i not be allowed to make $5 an hour?

>> No.4772215

>>4772076
That doesn't help me. Dead or not, this is a macroeconomic question that could apply to any country with an inflation-adjusted minimum wage.
>>4772126
Again, this doesn't help me. I didn't ask for thoughts on the ethics and politics of having a minimum wage in general. And yes, you could do that, you just would do it under the table, I have.

>> No.4772394
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4772394

>>4771990
>but the minimum wage is adjusted annually for inflation alone, yes?
arguably it should but effects of inflation don't necessarily reach business owners at the same time it reaches it's employees. that and there's enough political push back from people who don't think minimum wage should exist at all ideologically that it's not going to change that often or drastically.

>> No.4772476

>>4772126
>why should the federal government tell you what you are allowed to work for?
believe the main argument is if your being paid below the cost of living, the rest of that living cost is going to come from the tax payer in the form of welfare. so your indirectly subsidizing walmart's low prices with your taxes even if you don't shop there.

>> No.4772525

doesnt the US have state mandated minimum wage to solve the problem of local variations in inflation? having a minimum wage that is x by change inliving costs is ridiculous and would disrupt a number of functioning markets

>> No.4772541

>>4772394
Would it then benefit the economy to make the minimum wage be adjusted for inflation annually always? Would it further benefit from cost of living adjustment instead? Rather than "muh $15/hr", let's have it be proportional to a liveable wage, always, using COLA. It'd keep wages nice and flexible

>> No.4772579

>>4772525
The power for minimum wage enforcement is concurrent between states and the federal government, but the federal government sets the absolute minimum, with states only being able to increase wages beyond that. Can you elaborate on how my proposal would disrupt functioning markets?

>> No.4772630

>>4772126
because without minimum wage everyone would earn 5 dollars an hour, even the ones who want to earn more

>> No.4772706

>>4772541
not saying it wouldn't, just that minimum wage is highly political in the US so a fundamental change is unlikely to happen any time soon.
if your asking it would work in theory, maybe? economics is a messy field and the US rarely experiments with this stuff

this article comes to mind, but it's still pretty dirty experiment
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/04/06/473128291/episode-562-a-mall-divided

>> No.4772754

>>4772706
I'd love to see a politician run on that as his proposal. It's not super an-cap revolutionary in wanting to abolish the minimum wage, and also not super socialist in wanting to dramatically raise the minimum wage. It's just a correction to a system that forgot a variable.

>> No.4772828

>>4772754
yeah, but it's boring. US's infrastructure is falling apart largely because you don't win votes by talking about how you need a billion dollars of new taxes to fix bridges.

I'm not american by the way. your country is weird

>> No.4772899

>>4772828
But "hey all the minimum wage problems are gonna be solved in such a way that benefits everyone" seems like a pretty compelling argument
Regardless of whether or not it would've worked, Bernie ran on free college, free healthcare, and a higher minimum wage, and that got people excited

>> No.4772970

>>4771990
They would just continue to raise the cost of living in the area brainlett

>> No.4773026

>>4772899
>free college, free healthcare, and a higher minimum wage, and that got people excited
those got people exited because they were getting stuff they didn't have before. an administrative fix to policy doesn't have the same appeal, it's also more complicated than what can be explained in a sound bite.
not sure about the US but other countries experiment with these economic questions without really advertising it. if it works, they just slip it into policy without anyone really noticing. not everything has to be a political platform.

>> No.4773108

>>4772970
Someone doesn't understand cost of living and/or sticky prices
>minimum wage employees would change the prices of goods and services
lolwut, I don't even know where to start with that

>>4773026
I'm sure that there's a catchy flashy way to advertise it, like the whole "I've got a plan guys" way. Maybe I'll get one of my political science major friends who are going into politics to try to adopt this.
And yeah the US does that too but not as frequently or on as large of a scale

>> No.4773165
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4773165

Don't ask for an increase in minimum wage goyim. You'll be fine.

>> No.4773214

>>4773165
I'm not particularly concerned with an increase in minimum wage, just a sensible determination of it

>> No.4773299

>>4773108
hit the streets and ask a few min wage workers what they think about fixing, not raising, the minimum wage. I doubt you'll get a favorable response but you'll at least get a better idea of where it stands.
besides, fixing welfare (ie. free healthcare) as a whole already has more political momentum and also fixes similar problems as minimum wage so I don't know why you're so hung up on it.

>> No.4773321
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4773321

>>4772126

Wut? Didn't you get that memo too?

Oil is no longer important.

Venezuela pegged their new eCoin to their oil production and all the world bankers laughed at them.

>> No.4773506

>>4773299
It would result in a raise of the minimum wage, sure, and this could be the selling point, but the actual action would be to fix to minimum wage in such a way that it would go up. Basically, the left hears "minimum wage is going up" while the right hears "but I'm not raising it, persay, just fixing it".
And here in the US at least, minimum wage is still hotly debated. Although welfare and the like are increasingly important issues, minimum wage is still very much an issue to be discussed.